Archive for category Technology

ICOM’s IC-7300, r8500, IC-7610 and the currently upcoming IC-9700 are making huge impacts on AROs everywhere. This is no surprise to those of us familiar with SDR technology; older analog methods simply cannot offer the kinds of performance advantages a good SDR design can.

However, one thing these radios from ICOM have in common are some poor design choices; spectrum span choices are crippled compared to a center/demodulator tuning scheme; spectrums and waterfall displays that are insufficiently adjustable; noise blankers in the least useful portion of the signal path; insufficient “knobbiness”, so that the user interface of the radio is a great deal more clumsy than it actually needs to be.

The opportunity for Kenwood and Yaesu is clear: there’s an opening here to step in and knock ICOM off the hill they climbed up on.

Imagine a stand-alone SDR transceiver where:

You could conveniently place the spectrum/waterfall anywhere

You could adjust the amplitude/level of the waterfall and spectrum separately

The noise blanker reduced the noise on the display as well as in the audio

The display was capable of high resolution output to a monitor

Transmit pre-distortion provided very high quality TX

Important controls were given their own front panel placement

Full mouse/trackball integration was standard

Broadband IQ output was available for external use

Multiband EQ and compression / limiting for TX audio was provided

These are just some of the obvious places where ICOM’s radios, thus far, have fallen woefully short.

We can (if we are honest) observe that progress, and the potential it unleashes in many cases, is not all that closely linked with what’s commercially available or common around the time of the fundamental invention. In the first decade after lasers were invented, for instance, there was no significant commercial application. When the integrated circuit was invented, it wasn’t much to look at and functionally speaking, for decades, it was outright pitiful compared to ICs today. We’re still dealing with developing a full understanding of how neurons do what they do. In laser parlance, in 2017 we are yet pre-laser, and in my opinion, anyone who tries to tell us that lasers, figuratively speaking, can’t do X at this point should be considered, at most, a hand-waver in the grips of a fit of profound hubris.Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s how to properly explain the fast Fourier transform, or FFT: Okay, it’s a Fourier transform, or FT, right, but while you’re doing it, you fold the buckets and the coefficients like origami, see, yes, basically like a unicorn, so you have to cut the code here, and here, and here so the head will come out right, yes, that’s it, and this code over here, it only runs if the unicorn is facing south, plus, you pull its tail so it makes little unicorn poops, and those have to go back into the unicorn’s little feed bin for next time around, because otherwise, the feedbin is too sweet, see, and the buckets are all funny-like and time goes back to being partially frequency. And you don’t want that.

We are facing a brand-new set of oncoming challenges. There’s never been a situation previously where a significant (and likely unlimited and continuously, and rapidly, growing) wave of higher-qualified workers who did not require wages entered the workforce.

LDNLS vs. AI

I discuss LDNLS vs. AI over in this other post. These things are affecting the job market now. There’s no remaining time to feel or act complacent.

Increasingly sophisticated LDNLS Workers that never cheat, never steal, are never late, very rarely “sick”, have no unions, no wages, no insurance, no internecine or even trivial conflict, don’t get pregnant, who never have to stay home with sick kids or spouse, don’t need or want a cafeteria, a gym, breaks, a lunch hour, tips, or stock options; are unfailingly polite, even sympathetic, immune to office romance, gossip, corporate espionage, complaints of mistreatment; have no interest in and do not require promotion, will never misuse company time, and are replaceable the very moment something more effective is available without any consequences to social security charges, unemployment tithing, legal costs, or need for security personnel to walk the previous “employee” to the door.Read the rest of this entry »

Many like to try to guess at how long it will take to develop artificial intelligence. Like many in the field, I have my own ideas about it. I don’t think guesses that look at evolution as found in nature in order to apply those time scales to our own efforts are worthy. What follows is why I think that is the case.

Here’s the thing. Evolution in the sense most are familiar with it is basically a biological hardware development process. It took a long time for nature to produce the right computing hardware using that process. In the current “version” of humanity, consciousness arises automatically upon input and organization of enough data. That’s very good hardware from the perspective of consciousness or no consciousness.

With computer hardware, however, the odds are excellent that the hardware is already more than sufficient. If that’s the case, then we’re just dealing with one last step, which is strictly based on varying software.Read the rest of this entry »

Because I develop Software Defined Radio (SDR) software, I have occasion to connect, and disconnect, various network devices to my wired network in order to test them all day long. Most of the SDRs are designed to configure using DHCP, or can be convinced to do so. That saves some fooling around, and is a good thing. However, my network is extensive, devices are always being moved around, WiFi devices arriving and leaving, and so once the SDRs are assigned an IP, I have to go hunt them down. It was annoying that they’re always showing up somewhere different.

OS X has come a long way since OS X 10.6.8; among the pluses: better multiple monitor handling, considerably improved memory management (part of which was fixing the leaks in the color management pipeline that OS X 10.6.8 exhibits) repairs to the bugs in 10.6.8′s CUPS printing system, and so on.

Several times now I have been confronted with the proposition that AI — artificial intelligence — is so squishy a word that we just can’t say what it means. The implication apparently being that it can be legitimately used for just about anything. I disagree. Strongly. While there may be room for plenty of “squishyness” on this road, the problem right now is that no one has even gotten on the road.Read the rest of this entry »